


Informed Consent and Other Cosmic Ironies

by KiaraSayre



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Humor, Paperwork, Research Ethics, Tim Stoker Gives Absolutely No Fucks, well at least I found it funny and really that's all that matters in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 12:21:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16994919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiaraSayre/pseuds/KiaraSayre
Summary: Fun fact: interview-based research typically has to go through ethical review, and while oral histories have generally been exempt, that is less and less the case.Another fun fact: Tim is no longer allowed to fill out paperwork.





	Informed Consent and Other Cosmic Ironies

Dear Timothy Stoker,

Thank you for submitting your qualitative research protocol to the Research Ethics Council. As we have only recently begun requiring oral history projects (such as those done at the Magnus Institute) to receive ethical approval, we understand that this process may be unfamiliar. I have been assigned to assist with your application.

Your application for research ethics approval has been flagged for significant revision before it can go before the full oversight council.  

Please address the following points in your revision:

  1. Most oral history interviews pose minimal, if any, risk to subjects. However, you have reported the potential risk to subjects for this project as "all of them." Please elaborate.
  2. Under compensation to research subjects, you have responded: "Martin once got guilted into paying some lady who saw a ghost. This amount was, quote, 'enough to pay for a coffee, but not, like, a _nice_ coffee, not a macchiato or anything like that but maybe she takes it black?' But he's just a pushover. We don't pay for statements." While all compensation must be reported for ethical review, compensation should also be standardized. If your budget does not allow for consistent compensation, then entry into raffles are allowed.
  3. Oral history interviews are considered for the purposes of ethical review to be "semi-structured interviews." While semi-structured interviews may deviate from the interview protocol, we do ask that you include any general questions that you expect to ask every participant in said interview protocol. In light of this, please elaborate your interview protocol to include more than only "Statement begins."
  4. You have indicated that this research is sponsored. For the purposes of the ethics committee, a sponsor is "the company, institution, or organisation assuming overall responsibility for the initiation and management of the study." We are unable to locate any such company, institution, or organisation as "The Beholding," and "Eldritch Horror" is not an acceptable classification for such an organisation.  Eldritch horror or not, please provide, at a minimum, a phone number, email, and mailing address.
  5. In your theoretical rationale, you have a seven-page section titled "Maybe We'd All Be Better Off If We Didn't Know Things After All." While this is a shockingly well-researched polemic decrying empiricism and advocating quite persuasively in favour of relativistic epistemologies, it is misplaced in this application. Additionally, your citation of (Feyerabend 1975) is missing from the Works Cited.
  6. A series of seven question marks is not an acceptable study flow chart.
  7. Under the section for study key words, you have included "assorted grotesqueries" and "fuck-off spooky shit." These are not acceptable scholarly key words.
  8. "Fuck if I know but it's probably not great" is not an acceptable research objective.



While there are more revisions that can be made, I thought it perhaps best if we stopped there for now. Also, on a personal note, I would urge you to take this process more seriously, Mr. Stoker. While all of us qualitative researchers know the pain of chasing grant money, referring to grant-giving organisations as eldritch horrors is a bit beyond the pale.

Please submit these revisions as soon as possible, and please reach out if you have any questions.

**Author's Note:**

> Since episode 100 is basically a masterclass in how to recognize a research interview is going horribly wrong, I thought I would inflict another inevitability of qualitative research on the podcast that I binged in basically a week. Apologies if I got any of the ethical considerations wrong; I was going off of the US guidelines that I'm more familiar with.
> 
> Also, ethical reviews are very important and shouldn't be made fun of, even though that's exactly what I've done here.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Informed Consent and Other Cosmic Ironies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17834282) by [GoLBPodfics (GodOfLaundryBaskets)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodOfLaundryBaskets/pseuds/GoLBPodfics)




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